(I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend btw – and for those who didn’t get yesterday as a holiday, sorry for rubbing it in that we all did!)

Linzi email us with a rather specific question:

I would love to know how to make those chickens made from plastic bags? I desperately want to to know how to make, I teach art and crafts and I know my students would love to make them.

I double-checked what she meant by “chickens from plastic bags” and she means these guys, which are apparently made by communities in deprived parts of South Africa.

My Google-fu is failing me to find either a how-to for those, or indeed any alternative chicken decorations that could be made from plastic bags. I’ve made some little tin chickens from old drinks cans and I’ve seen lots of chickens for dangling made from, essentially, a circle of fabric/crochet – but I can’t find the tutorials for those either now… One thing I did find was the cockerel made from plastic bottles which we featured a couple of years ago – but again, I can’t find any how-tos…

Anyone got any links bookmarked or are better at searching than me?

We’ve had an email from Lieze:

how can i recycle an old jerry can in a creative way ?

Lieze doesn’t say whether it’s an old school pressed steel one or a newfangled plastic one – or whether it’s been used as a fuel container or a water one.

My first thought for anything container shaped at the moment is “plant pot” (has anyone else had a scarily successful germination rate for their seedlings this year?!) but I think I’d be hesitant to use an old fuel canister for that, even if I could work out a way to make the opening bigger. Anyway, that’s not particularly creative so … I don’t know – maybe if you can slice off the front off a metal one, you could attach hinges and make it into a fun storage cabinet. (I love the idea of it being painted bright pink for the juxtaposition with the cold, industrial metal ;) )

Any other suggestions?

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

I’ve been getting more and more interested in wild food lately – we’ve been trying different things while walking the dog in the woods behind our house and on Sunday, we went on a wonderful Wild Food Foray organised by Slow Food West Yorkshire. Led by medical herbalist Jesper Launder, we spent just over three hours pottering around the River Wharfe just north of Barden Bridge and tasted more than a dozen different plants, and also went crayfishing (for nasty invasive signal crayfish) – which was a lot of fun. (I’m going to do a full write up of all the things we tasted on my personal blog soon.)

Anyway, long & short of it is, between wild food collecting and the hopefully bountiful harvest from our garden, a trug would be really useful for carrying stuff back up to the house – a Sussex trug style basket like the one pictured rather than those big rubbery plastic bins with handles. Up to now, I’ve mostly just either taken so few leaves that I could easily carry them in my hands or used shopping bags/a colander when I’ve headed down to get a larger amount of, say, wild garlic – but a trug would be useful for carrying large amounts of longer things, letting them lie flat instead of crunching them up.

One recycled trug idea I’ve seen is made using an old car tyre – the tyre is cut into sections (sixths?) and rope handles are attached, et voila! instant trug. I’ve also seen old fruit/veg boxes made into trugs with addition of a central handle.

But before I start hacking up John’s spare, I thought it might be interesting to hear if anyone has any other suggestions. Might something like paper mache even work? It doesn’t need to be that strong and I guess it could be varnished/painted enough to make it waterproof enough (it wouldn’t be sitting out in the rain but the plants might be damp/dewy.)

Any other ideas?

I got an email with the above subject line and assuming it was spam, braced myself for a rude message – but in fact it was a genuine reusing/upcycling question from Valerie:

i am getting married again, but because it is my second marriage, i don’t want to spend a lot of money all over again.

i still have the gown i wore for my first wedding, a couple of years back (not outdated yet!), which i love, but i wouldn’t wear it white again…can i stain it? to make it cream or just not white?

i read something about tea staining, but i would need to use a tub to evenly stain it, which i don’t have…suggestions?

My first thought whenever anyone asks about staining/dyeing old clothes is always: what fabric is it? Natural fabrics dye a lot better and lot more evenly than synthetic ones. If you’re not sure what fabric it is – well, even if you are sure, it would be worth doing a swatch test on a hidden layer to check out how well the stain will take and what it’ll look like.

(For those interested in natural dyes, I’d recommend the Pioneer Thinking guide to plant dyes – what to use to get different colours and what to use as fixes.)

Any other advice? and what about tub suggestions/advice? I’m not an expert dyer but I believe you have to be careful using some metal pots (especially aluminium) – is plastic to be avoided too? Valerie seems happy with the design but any other upcycling advice?

(Photo by trudyloos)

We’ve had an email from Jill with a question that I’m hoping our wonderful legion of crafters will be able to answer:

I’ve recently unravelled a jumper I knitted many years ago. The wool is good quality and now ready to use again. I can’t get the crimp out of the man made fibre yarn. It’s also good quality and I’d really like to use it again. I’ve washed it and hung it out to dry but the crimp is still there. Have you any suggestions?

I’ve not unravelled that many things (due to a lack of materials not a lack of desire, frogging really appeals to my OCD) so haven’t had that much experience with resistant crimping – one jumper was sorted after a wash and dry cycle; the gentle tension of winding it into a ball was enough for another (a cotton one).

So any experienced yarn reclaimers got any advice?

(CCA photo by StefwithanF)